Power Play (39 page)

Zack had the most wonderful afternoon catching no fewer than four magnificent sea trout over a three-hour period on this tranquil Irish river with its deep pools and quiet riverbank. Arnie’s fishing career was altogether shorter. In one half hour he hooked a bicycle wheel, an old sea boot, and no fish.

At one point, driven to barely controlled fury by his own lack of skill, he slashed the rod back and forth for a giant cast, hooked the right ear of an Irish cow grazing behind him, and would probably have been gored to death but for the solid protective iron fence that surrounded the pasture.

At this point, with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs laughing helplessly, Admiral Morgan, former head of the United States Atlantic Submarine Fleet, formally announced his retirement from fly-fishing on account of its being “entirely too goddamned dangerous.”

In fact, there was nothing the admiral enjoyed more than to give a prolonged exhibition of mock anger, and he amused Zack Lancaster, as he had done for decades. His acute dislike of the newly discovered sport was genuine enough, but he cared nothing for his humiliation and thought it was as funny as Zack did.

They’d brought canvas chairs with them, and Arnie sat out the next couple of hours lounging in the autumn sun, ridiculing his buddy for the inordinate time he spent standing in the water with absolutely nothing happening at either end of his fly rod.

This level of banter ended when Sea Trout Number Three splashed into the general’s net. And Sea Trout Number Four represented their forthcoming dinner, which would be expertly cooked by Finbar’s wife, Mary, accompanied by a specially selected magnum of white burgundy from the admiral’s Irish cellar, a 2010 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru, Les Pucelles, from the domaine of Olivier Leflaive.

For dinner that evening Mary Murphy wrapped each trout in separate tinfoil with just butter, salt, and pepper and cooked them on the hot outside grill. When she unwrapped each one, the outer skin seemed just to fall off, and she removed the center bone and served the fresh fillets with Irish potatoes and spinach.

For the first time Zack broached the subject of the Donegal base, and Arnold seemed slightly skeptical. But when Zack told the admiral precisely why they wanted it, to deal with the forthcoming Russian treachery, the whole atmosphere changed. Arnold glared at the mere thought of the Russian Navy and muttered, “I suppose that blowhard bastard Rankov’s at the bottom of this.”

“We don’t think so,” replied the general. “But I have no doubt he’s in it up to his goddamned neck. For a short time we had an excellent spy, a
Russian Naval officer working right at the heart of the FOM-2 program. That’s how we found out about it.”

“And did he discover the causes of their aggression?”

“He placed it right at the door of President Nikita Markova himself. Apparently, he’s never forgiven the USA for providing the hardware that helped the Israelis destroy the nuclear factories in Iran.”

“Any more than the Israelis have forgiven Russia for arming the Syrians, so they could bombard them from the Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War.”

“Funny you should mention that, Arnie,” said the general. “The Russian Naval officer was a contact of the Mossad, and it was one of the Israeli field officers who nurtured him.”

“Is the Russian still active?” asked Arnie.

“He’s dead.”

“Jesus. Don’t tell me the Russians had him taken out?”

“He was talking to the Mossad man when they shot him. We got the whole story pretty quickly. The Israeli’s a real good guy, ex-IDF commando, who’s an old friend of one of our SEAL Team commanders.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Possibly. Captain Mack Bedford. SEAL Team 10 out of Coronado. He and the Israeli were in the Gulf together.”

“Wasn’t he the officer they court-martialed after that uproar on the Euphrates River?”

“He was. A goddamned disgrace it was, too.”

“I remember it, Zack. And it was a goddamned disgrace.”

“Mack flew here to Ireland with us,” said the general. “He’s gone up to Donegal to meet us sometime tomorrow . . . You girls can come if you wish . . . It’s a beautiful coastline, and we’re taking the helicopter, but we will be busy for a couple of days.”

“I think we’ll stay here,” said Kathy. “I’ll take Virginia to Cork City one day, and we can visit the coast here.”

“Okay,” said Arnold. “I had not quite realized that Zack was here to place me on assignment.”

“Steady, Arnie. This is a request, not an order. You are perfectly at liberty to turn it down and mortify the president of the United States, while disappointing every one of the service chiefs in addition to the secretary of defense. Nothing serious.”

“Then I guess I’d better do it,” chuckled Arnie.

The subject of FOM-2 was subtly pushed aside, since neither the former national security czar nor the current head of the Pentagon was comfortable speaking on matters of the highest classification in front of anyone. And, knowing Admiral Morgan’s preoccupation with all forms of military history, Zack asked him if he’d taken up local Irish folklore yet, especially their long struggle to kick out the British.

Unsurprisingly, Arnold Morgan was heavily into this heroic tale of the disorganized little island that took on the king’s trained army—the same one that, with American help, had been about to slam the kaiser, never mind the near-defenseless Emerald Isle.

“Right here, old buddy,” said Arnold, “we’re sitting in the very cradle of the Irish Revolution. Just down the road, in Clonakilty, Emmet Square, there’s a seven-foot bronze statue of the Big Feller—Michael Collins, the heartbeat of Irish Independence. He came from right around here, two or three miles up the road in Woodfield—the Collins family farm is still there. Not the whole house. The British burned that . . . ”

“Michael Collins?” said the general. “Wasn’t there a movie about him? I’m darn sure I saw one. It opened with the siege of O’Connell Street, the British army blasting the rebel headquarters in the post office with artillery shells.”

“That’s it, Zack. And you’ll remember the Irish officer, standing high at a window, defying them with just his service revolver, firing back, refusing to surrender even though he couldn’t win. That was Collins.”

“He was some kind of a guy, and the Brits hated him, so he must have been a real pain in the ass.”

“He was a lot worse than that,” said the admiral. “Without him, the Irish would have caved in. But he kept rallying them, organizing skilled guerrilla warfare, attacking and harassing them, blowing them up, shooting from the hillsides, hurling bombs, killing and raiding.

“A lot more happened, but the truth is, the British army just got fed up with the grief, packed up, and left forever . . . Like all of Irish history, there’s a song . . . and the last line goes, ‘But the boys that beat the Black and Tans were the boys from the County Cork.’”

“And this is his country, these hillsides, these country roads—Clonakilty. Birthplace of Michael Collins.” General Lancaster was genuinely taken by this Irish history. And he remembered from the film how the Big
Feller had died in 1922, ambushed in a County Cork lane, assassinated by men who had once fought alongside him.

“The whole thing disintegrated into a pretty good mess in the end,” said Arnold. “Collins became a politician, and there were treaties, clashes, rows with the British, rows with each other, between those for the partition and those against. And they decided to kill him.”

“I’ll bet they regretted it.”

“Christ, yes,” replied Arnold. “He was the first commander in chief of the Irish Republican Army, president of the republic, the head of Sinn Fein, and the supreme patriot of his time. A lot of people never got over his death. And it took ’em a long time to build his statue, not until 2002.”

“I’d like to see the statue,” said the general.

“Soon as we get back from Donegal, I’ll take you down there,” said Arnold. “Collins and I had a few things in common, to tell you the truth.”

“No doubt,” replied Zack. “Patriotism and military know-how, for a start.”

“And we were both heavy into intelligence,” said the admiral. “You know about me in the NSA. Michael Collins founded the first Irish spy network, ran it himself, infiltrated the occupying army, drove the Brits mad.”

“I guess we’re a bit like that with the Russians,” added the general. “And them with us.”

 

Captain Mack Bedford stood on the lawn out in front of the hotel and watched the US Navy helicopter making its approach across the eastern end of the bay. It came in low, banked hard left, and descended gently but with a deafening howl from its rotors as it touched down on the neatly clipped grass.

The copilot climbed down and opened the passenger door for General Lancaster and Admiral Morgan and carried their leather overnight duffel bags into the hotel. The two senior US commanders shook hands with Mack, and he led them into the front door of St. Ernan’s House.

The helicopter took off immediately, flying northwest up to Donegal Airport, thirty miles away in Carrickfinn, another spectacular stretch of coastline on the shores of this wild and mountainous country. Meanwhile, Admiral Morgan and Mack Bedford met for the first time and over a quick cup of coffee aligned their opinions about dealing with the Russians.

At this point, Michael O’Malley showed up with the car. They set off down the road to the head of Inver Bay. Mack Bedford did not believe it was possible that any one man could ask as many important questions as those fired at him from Admiral Morgan.

Mack answered everything, because this was not your average inquisitor. This was Arnold Morgan, probably the most feared admiral in the US Navy since the death, in 1959, of “Bull” Halsey, the fire-breathing Pacific War commander, Third Fleet.

It was clear to Mack that Admiral Morgan thought the ability to house, service, and protect US submarines was paramount to the requirements of the new base. But only once did Arnold mutter his personal view, “If these Russians cut up rough, in any way, we might have to put ’em right on the bottom of the goddamned Atlantic Ocean. We may have to hit ’em hard, hit ’em fast, and hit ’em low, below the waterline. And to be sure of that, we’ll need a submarine out there ASAP. Right out of Donegal. Let’s not fuck it up.”

“Good idea, sir,” said Mack. “No bullshit.”

It was a short, crisp statement right out of the admiral’s playbook. Mack was delighted to see the great man chuckling.

“When we attack, who’s commanding it?” asked Arnold.

“I am, sir. SEAL Team 10. Scuttle the ship, retrieve the nuclear warheads, and take no prisoners.”

“How do we know there’ll be nuclear stuff on board?” he asked sharply.

“That’s a definite, sir. The Russian spy found that out very early on and told my buddy in the Mossad. The missile to be fired at OPS 2A is a
‘shaped’ and controlled nuclear warhead, causing a massive explosion, but designed to knock down only the immediate target, no peripheral damage. I don’t know if they can achieve that, sir. But they’ve hauled in experts from all over the world—and that’s their aim.”

Admiral Morgan grinned. He patted Mack on the shoulder and asked, “Can we stop ’em, Captain?” he said.

“Affirmative, sir. We’ll stop ’em alright. And there won’t be anyone left to discuss it, either. Russian sonsabitches.”

Arnold Morgan
loved
Navy SEALs.

Michael drove them all over the area. They went down to St. John’s Point and back to the village of Inver. The visitor from Clonakilty wanted to know every last inch of the plan, including the availability of granite from the quarry masters of McMonagle Stone in the little town of Mountcharles.

Arnold knew the weight of responsibility he would bear when he opened discussions with the Irish prime minister, and the one thing he detested most in all the world was being stumped on any technical question. Mack, anticipating this, had spent a diligent evening writing out meticulous notes and drawing diagrams.

He gave everything to the admiral, including the chart he had borrowed from the SPECWARCOM library. And for the second time, Mack visited the local electric substation and the water company’s ops center near Donegal Town. Water had never been any kind of an Irish problem, especially in Donegal, where the ferocity of the rainstorms sweeping in from the Atlantic has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

Arnold Morgan never missed a beat. By six they were through and decided to return to St. Ernan’s House to have dinner. All three of them would leave the following morning, Mack to Shannon by car to pick up the Aer Lingus midday flight from Dublin to Washington, the admiral and the general by helicopter back to West Cork.

It was immediately after dinner when General Lancaster finally asked the question that mattered most. “Arnie,” he said, “may I take it you will accept this assignment and deal with it politically and practically from now on?”

“You may. I am honored to be asked, and I’ll do everything I can to get the
taoiseach
on our side. I don’t think that will be too much of a problem because it’s a great proposition for him, and for Ireland. But I need to
persuade him he doesn’t need a new law or anything that will hang us up in the Irish Parliament for Christ knows how long.”

As ever, the admiral had instantly cut to the chase. Speed was everything. The one thing that would scuttle this operation was a long delay in creating US Navy Base Donegal. Markova’s navy was ready to load the missiles onto their freighter in Severomorsk, in readiness to proceed with all haste, south down the Atlantic Ocean to Panama.